Originally posted Friday, October 19, 2018 by RODNEY HO/rho@ajc.com on his AJC Radio & TV Talk blog

Trevor Noah on "The Daily Show" Thursday night did a five-minute comedy bit addressing some of the controversies involving voting in Georgia during the gubernatorial race.

Noah, who is coming to the Fox Theatre to do a stand-up show in February of next year, pointed out the 53,000 names placed in "pending" status because they didn't precisely match state driver's license and Social Security records.

“I think this is just bull****,” Noah said. “It’s funny how this happens with voting, but it never stops the I.R.S.. Oh, the I.R.S. is never like ,’Oh, we have Trevok Noah!’ You don’t have to pay taxes this year!’ No, they’ll be like, ‘Hey Trevor Noah, you misspelled your name dumba**! And you owe 20 grand!’”

He also noted that 70 percent of the names on hold happen to be black though the population is 32 percent black. “Well, well, well!” “he said. “My old friend racism! I’ve been expecting you! Isn’t it interesting how every time Republicans create a voting restriction, it just so happens to disproportionately affect the people of the brown, brown, hmm?”

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“It’s very slick,” he continued. “On the surface, it always seems legitimate. One hundred years ago, the argument was, ‘Nothing personal. We can’t let people vote if they don’t know how to read.’ And black people were like, ‘But learning to read was illegal!’ ‘Oh! Ironic! Look at that!’ Today, it’s ‘How can we trust it’s really you if the name’s not exactly the same?’ And black people are like, ‘White people never spell my name right!’ ‘Well, that’s too bad Derique!’ ‘Yo! It’’s Derrick!’”

Noah said you don’t have to say out loud that a rule hurts a particular group of people. It just has to “happen’ to do so. “If I was trying to block white people at the voting booth, I wouldn’t need to say, ‘No white people allowed!’ ” Noah said. “I’d be like, ‘Sorry, no pumpkin spice latte’s in the voting booth!’”

He also noted that Brian Kemp did not step down as Secretary of State, which oversees elections for the state.

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He compared this to African-type level shadiness. He imitates an African leader: “Okay, now that everyone has voted, I’m going to take the ballots into the other room and when I come back, I’ll tell you how I won, I mean, who won.”

Noah then posits that every black person should register as a Republican. They don't have to actually vote Red. But if Republicans think blacks will vote for them, "they will make sure your vote counts."  He said all Kanye West had to do was wear a MAGA hat and he was invited to "talk time travel in the Oval Office!"

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